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This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.

Issue #89,
5/13/2007

The Case Against Marriage - Introduction

By Glenn CampbellFamily Court Philosopher

MOVED!

This philosophy essay became the first chapter of a book I am
writing, The Case Against Marriage.
Please go there to read it. (The text below may be out of date.)

[ First Chapter in Book: "The Case Against Marriage" ]

You're probably not going to listen to me, but I'm going to
give it a shot anyway. You've been considering marriage, and
I am here to dissuade you. I'm not against love, mind you,
or even against bonding for life if that's the way things
turn out. It is only the public contract I object to. Why
does a private relationship need a public sanction? Why
can't you negotiate your relationship on your own, as it
unfolds, just between the two of you, without the social or
governmental license?

Marriage is something that could screw up your relationship,
replacing true attraction with a dull institution.
At the least, it reduces your flexibility, making it harder
to respond to inevitable changes in yourself and your
partner.

There are plenty of married people out there, and I'm not
saying they should get unmarried. We all have to make the
best of our current circumstances. I only want to address
you, the naive young dilettante, while there is still a
chance to save you.

Let's think this thing through together, shall we? What
does marriage really mean, and what are its practical
effects? Is it really going to help your relationship or
hurt it? What are the legal, social, economic and
psychological ramifications of walking down the aisle? Why
do people think they need marriage, and how are they
deluded?

Gays and lesbians are always crying because they can't get
married in most jurisdictions. I say they should count their
blessings! It is like women fighting for the right to join
the military and go to war. Before you make a big deal about
it, you ought to think things through: "Do I really want to
go to war?" Why should gays fight to join the same prison
everyone else is trapped in?

Gay relationships, in fact, may be leading the way to an
enlightened future that heteros ought to embrace. Think
about it: Gays can't get married, so what do they do?
They piece together the elements of marriage a la carte,
as it suits their needs. If they want to share death
benefits, that make up wills. If they want to share a bank
account, they open one together. They don't try to share
everything all at once from this day forth, which,
legally, is what marriage makes you do. Gays have to
negotiate every act of sharing on a case-by-case basis,
which is the essence of a healthy and dynamic relationship.
In the absence of negotiated sharing, they remain free and
independent individuals.

I know something about marriage from having been through it
once. I also see the tail end of the institution as an unofficial observer
of Family Court in Las Vegas. Las Vegas, of course, is the
marriage capital of the world, but you learn far more about
the institution by studying divorces as they pass through
court. There is a Yin and Yang between marriage and divorce.
Campbell's Law says that the nastiness of the divorce is
proportional to the unreality of the initial delusion.
Divorce is the paying of the piper after an overdose of
fantasy.

During divorce, there is plenty of blame floating around,
but in the end, you have to acknowledge that it was your own
damn fault. You were the one who bought into this fantasy.
Before you got married, you believed the fairytale nonsense,
that this was really going to change your relationship for
the better and make it more "secure". The trouble with
security is that it often works both ways:
In trying to lock out the uncertainties of the world,
you may be locking yourself in a cage that reduces your
own freedom.
Because you
can no longer easily step away, you may have
lost much of your ability to
negotiate with your cellmate. Instead, you make
accommodations and more accommodations and sweep problems
under the carpet until—Kaboom!—things finally
blow up.

People are fundamentally independent entities. The urge to
merge with someone else can be huge, but there is a
practical limit to how far you can go. If you get too close
to anyone for too long, there are bound to be problems. It
is like being handcuffed to the one you love: After the novelty
wears off, it is going to be a pain in the ass to get
anything done. The person you are trapped with
is bound to fray on your nerves. Once you have already shared
everything you can share, you hunger for new
experiences as an independent being
so you can maybe come back later and share again.

The healthiest base position is one of discrete individuality. We should each be self-contained entities with our own careers, assets,
goals and relationships. We should come together with other only as it
suits us, negotiating each engagement on its own merits.
Over time, we might share more of ourselves, and this
is fine, as long as it happens naturally. You never have to
take any "Big Step" to make a relationship work.
Instead, a lot of little steps could
conceivably lead you to the same result. If you move slowly and
incrementally, what you will
probably have in the end is a more solid and stable
relationship, because everything was carefully built stone
by stone, not purchased as a unit.

The institution of marriage
replaces an independently constructed relationship
with a single social contract that attempts to
compact years of development into a single sentence: "I do."
It like buying your diploma from a mail order company rather
than actually going to college. It is a waving of the magic
wand that is supposed to build everything all at once. You
stand up before all your family and friends and say, "This is all I
am ever going to want for the rest of my life." Do you
think that by saying this you are really going to make it
happen?

If it does happen—you remain attached to each other
for life—how do you know
it was really a free choice? Did you stay together
because it was truly the best arrangement,
or was it because you were imprisoned
together and escape was too painful? If you are married,
you are never really going to know.

In this book, we will explore marriage and relationships and
sexual attraction and law and contracts and loneliness and fear.
What are people afraid of when they get married? No
institution can be all positive; there have to be demons
under the surface, and we will try our best to dig them up.